OTHER TITLES OF INTEREST.

In The Horizontal Organization (Oxford University Press), management consultant Frank Ostroff traces the future evolution of business structures. The top-down hierarchy, a pillar of business since the Industrial Revolution, has become obsolete and no longer responds to the new requirements of the business world. Ostroff explains how bureaucracy can be reduced and productivity improved with his concept of shared responsibility among a group of executives. He notes that this system has been put into practice at the Client Services Division of Ford Motor Co. and at Xerox Corp., as well as in the public sector at the U.S. government's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Contrary to the opinion of some that the gold rush fever on the Internet is nearing its final days, Mary Modahl, vice president of market research firm Forrester Research, says in Now or Never (Harperbusiness) that we're in the first year of a decade of change in the way consumers buy goods and services. Modahl points out that 52% of the people in the United States are embracing technological change and "are marching happily toward online shopping." So while the Internet phenomenon has taken many traditional businesses by surprise, now is the moment to start participating in that great transformation.